Thursday, January 04, 2018

From Snapshot to Blog Idea in 1 Press

My strategy of using a spreadsheet to track blog topics has been working well. I get quite a bit of use out of a Tasker action that adds to this spreadsheet from Android's Share button. This allows me to queue up the idea with minimal effort.

One shortcoming in this approach is that it doesn't work with files. For example, if I snap a photo and press the 'Share' button a local path to the file is stored in the spreadsheet, which is not useful.

Adding the functionality to detect a file and turn it into a URL turned out be straightforward:

All it took was a new conditional to detect if a file was provided (IsSet? %asfile1), then a call to the 3Shrink Action. Around this call is some simple variable handling.

Let's say I wanted to write an exposé on how less than an inch of snow shut down the local government. I could grab my phone, snap a picture of the paltry snow in our backyard and share that to the spreadsheet. Here's how it would look in the Ideas spreadsheet:

What that entry lacks in clarity it makes up in convenience. I'm all about grabbing ideas, no matter how fleeting.

Up next: setting up a waterproof speaker/microphone so I can record ideas right from the shower. OK, that may be going a bit to far. Or maybe not?